Essays

In a hateful political climate, it’s easy to feel defeat. However, Daniel 7 teaches us that God is present in the midst of oppression and intervenes as a liberator God. We must join in this liberation to defy feelings of defeat.

We have been led astray by those who invoke religion to undergird their own social, political, and economic power. When we find ourselves enthralled to their apparent grandeur, we, too, will find the world beginning to crumble around us.

The vocation of the public theologian is to testify to their faith and in doing so to further the good news of Jesus in all our publics. At the same time, the aim of this public theological discourse ought not be to colonize other publics for Christianity.

To be a public theologian does not mean to do theology for everybody. It is not a matter of speaking from the particular to the universal, but of dwelling within multiple, overlapping particularities and finding theological meaning there.

President Donald Trump has engaged in false rhetoric about the migrant caravan making its way through Mexico, appealing to the narratives many Americans hold about foreigners and migrants. Christians must appeal to a counter-narrative of welcoming and hospitality that better accounts for the facts.

The Mentoring Initiative aims to bring together students and scholars engaged in different research methods but who are addressing a shared set of questions. Our hope is that the Political Theology Network Mentoring Initiative might even create a space where new research questions and methods will emerge.

If we want to focus on stopping sexual violence we need to ask much more disruptive questions about the conserving influence within Christian political theologies that accompanies their radical critiques.